"'Civilization needs more than the few monopolists we've got.'"
-Poul Anderson, "Lodestar" IN Anderson, David Falkayn: Star Trader (Riverdale, NY, January 2009), pp. 449-484 AT p. 455.
Coya Conyon:
"I can't say I like most of those money-machine merchant princes..." (p. 456)
The Polesotechnic League become cartelized in Mirkheim.
Centuries later, Chunderban Desai:
"'Technic civilization started on that road when the Polesotechnic League changed from a mutual-aid organization of free entrepreneurs to a set of cartels. Tonight we are far along the way.'"
-A Knight Of Ghosts And Shadows, p. 274.
A tremendous sense of continuity through a long future history series.
Now I am trying to hear some news, read two other books and attend the Zen group.
8 comments:
Kaor, Paul!
I'll take "money-machine merchant princes" any day over loathsome and fanatical ideological crazies!
Ad astra! Sean
That is hardly the point.
Kaor, Paul!
My point being that merchant princes making money by buying and selling goods and services of all kinds are far preferable to blood soaked "incorruptible" fanatics like Robespierre. People like Henry Ford or Elon Musk have been far more beneficial than any ideologues.
Ad astra! Sean
Sean,
And my point is that there is no need to make such a comparison.
Paul.
Kaor, Paul!
Such comparisons are still going to arise in many persons minds. In fact, I think Nicholas van Rijn himself made very similar comparisons.
Ad astra! Sean
And I see no point in saying which is better as if they were the only two options.
Kaor, Paul!
Some options are going to be better than others.
Ad astra! Sean
Yes, but these are not the only two options.
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